Outstanding examples of economically challenged students who have carved out their success stories

"Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation," said Richard Bach in, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Many students across India, from economically challenged families, are now conquering such limitation to achieve pinnacles of success. When Anand Kumar started the Super 30 programme in Patna, he had no idea that it would become so successful.

"I had got admission for higher studies at Cambridge University based on merit and couldn't go because my family didn't have the resources," he says. And now he has the satisfaction of seeing most of the students from his coaching centre Super 30, cracking the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE). While Kumar's success stories are always about IITs, there are many more such cases of students overcoming huge challenges to carve out their own success stories.

We bring you some outstanding examples:

Gypsy Scholar

Life was never easy for Bhukya Jagadish Singh Nayak. He had to travel 40-45 km by bus to reach school, crossing 3-4 irrigation canals on the way. The first bus left at 7 am and he had to wait till 5 pm for the bus back home. And if there were special classes — like when he was in Class 10 — then he could only take the 10 pm bus. As for food: a bowl of rice and then straight to bed.

The odds were stacked against Nayak. He belongs to the Lambadi (Banjara) tribe and comes from Surya Thanda village in Kamman district of Andhra Pradesh. Worse he lost his father to tuberculosis when he was 15 and was brought up by his mother who worked as a community worker.

"I was always good at studies and the Banjara Sevak Samithi chipped in to help me get through school," he says. "I knew I had to do well in studies and for that I was willing to sacrifice all the small joys growing up has." Well sacrifice he did. During his plus-2 years he enrolled in a course to prepare for IIT-JEE. That meant his study hours extended from 6 am to 11 pm. All this paid off when a few months back he found himself at the gates of IITBombay — his first trip outside his village. — Neenu Abraham

Diligent Daughter

Decisions determine destiny — how true these words are for Poonam Dhull and her family. Instead of giving in to pressure from relatives and villagers, Poonam's father Suresh Pal, a driver, decided not to marry her off but encourage her to study further. Which her eldest child has done with panache. Earlier this month Poonam flew off to University of South Carolina to do her doctorate in chemistry. The icing? A $50,000 scholarship. It has been an arduous journey for Poonam.

Sharing a room with her parents and her two siblings; her father's meagre pension from the army to which her mother added her bit by teaching students at home... "We changed eight homes in the past few years in this very city [Chandigarh]. My father was helpless. So I also started teaching from the time I was in class 12," Poonam says.

But there was support. At home her mother egged her on and at Panjab University, P Venugopalan, her teacher and mentor at the chemistry department. But money was always her problem. The family spent Rs 3 lakh — nearly all its savings — in applying to various US universities. The family's stress on education is paying off. Son Devender has just completed his BTech and younger daughter Ritu is studying chartered accountancy. — Viney Sharma

Graft Buster

Born in the Pathanamthitta district in Kerala, life was one long struggle for Lipin Raj MP; first with his own handicap and then with the poor economic conditions that existed in his family's small house. He lost his vision in one eye after an injury. "The accident also affected the vision of the other eye," he says.

Thus with only 40 % eyesight he passed 10th and 12th examinations with top honours. In 2006, he joined the Mar Ivanios College in Thiruvananthapuram for a degree in mass communication. To fund his studies, he took up the job of a part-time correspondent in a Malayalam daily. After completing his degree in 2009, he wanted to go to Delhi and study further.

But with no financial support from anywhere he found it difficult to do so. Just when hope seemed to recede, Lipin got a message from State Bank of Travancore that he had cleared a clerical test that he had written earlier.

Soon he became a probationary officer in IDBI Bank. By then he had completed his master's degree in history. Lipin says that the turning point in his life was when a government official asked for a bribe to attest a certificate. "It was the incident that changed my life, he said. "It was after that I decided to appear for the civil service examination," he adds. — S Sananda Kumar

Focussed Manager

Forget about media interviews, N Shiva Kumar doesn't even have time for friends or relax over a cup of coffee. The 23-year-old thinks only about his projects and lectures at IIM-C where he is studying finance.